Tag archive for ‘Bank of America’

A study released yesterday concerning the Securities & Exchange Commission's settlement with Bank of America over its acquisition of Merrill Lynch found that the SEC treated the bank with kid gloves because of the state of the U.S. economy at the time. The Merrill Lynch acquisition is the focus of "Crash of the Titans," the [...]

Greg Farrell, author of "The Crash of the Titans" was featured on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning. In the interview, Farrell discusses former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal, former head of fixed income Osman Semerci, and the combination of factors that brought the company down. The video clip is below: Visit msnbc.com for breaking [...]

Steve Schaefer, who writes the "Exile on Wall Street" column for Forbes.com, recommended "Crash of the Titans" for weekend reading. He says "[Author Greg] Farrell tells a story based on hundreds of hours of interviews that builds like a hurricane. A storm that began with a mounting pile of of toxic debt that ultimately resulted [...]

Jessica Pressler, of New York Magazine's Daily Intel, writes yesterday about "Crash of the Titans": "As is indicated by the subtitle, no one really comes off well in Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, The Fall of Merrill Lynch and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America, the latest financial-crisis snuff book from FT reporter Greg [...]

Andrew Leonard of Salon.com yesterday released his review of "Crash of the Titans" highlighting how the book is more about what drove executives at Merrill Lynch to continue " … merrily speculating in mortgage-backed securities constructed out of the dregs of the dregs" than it is about the government's role in the financial meltdown. Leonard [...]

Author, Greg Farrell

GREG FARRELL is a correspondent for the Financial Times. In January 2009, he broke the news that Merrill Lynch had paid out its 2008 bonuses a month ahead of schedule, in December, even though Merrill was in the process of losing $28 billion for the year, and Bank of America needed an extra $20 billion in taxpayer funds to complete its acquisition of the firm. That story sparked an investigation by New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo. Greg is a past winner of the American Business Press’s Jesse Neal Award for investigative reporting and a recipient of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship for business journalism. He earned a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University.